


slumberdread

by azureforest



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi | Fire Emblem: Binding Blade
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Introspection, chad almost dies, somnophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 06:52:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11053611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azureforest/pseuds/azureforest
Summary: he didn't want to sleep anymore. (he never wanted to sleep again.)





	slumberdread

**Author's Note:**

> stresswriting, i guess its vent. not entirely sure where i wanted this to go and not sure if im happy w this but. take it. just. yeah.

 Sleep’s hands are always outstretched, beckoning, calling him towards soft blues and mother’s glow, pleading with his tired feet, hands, eyes to rest, pleading for his bloodied hands to lay idle and take, take no longer. She reaches, reaches, reaches evermore for as long as he would live. And she waits.

He took her hands once in the light of a staff, dagger slipping from his grasp, and Sleep’s hands were cold- His fingers remained locked, intertwined in hers as he slowly felt himself freeze over, the icy touch misleadingly warm, and he found himself unable to back away as the sky gently wrapped itself around him in a cocoon woven of death and fear, a misplaced sense of calm, everything too close to make out anymore- A world were all wasn’t, never was or would be, locked away in his dreamless dreams with only the lingering touch of her cold blue light and Lugh’s screams ringing in his ears following him into the dark.

There was nothing, nothing there but warmth and rest and rest and Mother Sleep, murmuring bedtime stories and prayers, borrowing a voice too much like Father Lucius’ for him to shy away, carding gentle fingers through blond locks, bidding him to rest just a while longer as he grew leaden- Blood ran cold and his insides turned to steel, precious molten metals through his body in searing streams.

But something- A dull ache- It ebbed, flowed, and he could no longer feel at all, the absence stark in the surrounding void, rapidly claiming what was not yet due. Dull panic pounded at the back of his head, echoes of second-before-last thoughts rattling between his teeth. The boy started, struggled.

Her grip on him tightened, nails digging into his shoulders, numb to the pressure, but aware of the fact that this dream was now a nightmare. _Don’t go_ , she said. _Not yet, not ever. They’ll hurt you, my dear, my dear, stay here with me forever._ His mouth opened in protest, but his tongue would not, weighed down with the heavy taste of iron, unwelcome, familiar and sharp- Yet he begged, begged with every inch of his soul because he didn’t want to not exist, he’d never meant to sleep alone.

He didn’t want to sleep alone.

 _But you’re not alone_ , she replied.

I don’t know you, he spat, a splatter of red on blue.

 _But I know all of you._ She urged- _You, your dreams. You speak them all to me and lay them bare. I give you life. I give you so much. Please come back to me. Please sleep._

Dreams had never done anything for him, false hopes on his sleeves, night terrors imprinted on his eyelids and phantoms at his wrists- Let me go.

_No._

You can’t make me stay.

_You couldn't possibly go._

Yes I can, get the hell away from me.

...

_Fine-_

_But you can't stay away for long, you know._

_You can’t leave forever, either._

**_So leave me, then._ **

Words echoed into a wordless scream, drawn from Sleep’s throat as she thrust him away from her, nails tearing through his skin. The burn was pleasant, but melted to agony as more red dribbled from his lips, as her screams became horrified, familiar, sharp noise he never wanted to hear again, and there’s hands on his shoulders he’s too weak to struggle against, softer, smaller, no longer nails that slashed and tore. His vision was red around the corners, far from the blues of his dream, and molten ore dripped from his mouth with every breath, dripping red on red on tears on red- It burned. Lugh was crying, hands white on his shoulders, in his cloak, around a Recover staff.

“Sleep staff,” he breathed, tear-streaked face stricken as green eyes flitted back to the midst of the battlefield. “You just… You fell, a-and a soldier-“ He bowed his head, rested it on the thief’s shoulder. “I thought I lost you.”

Chad choked on too-short breath, still spitting red onto tiled floor, remnants of wounds he couldn’t remember, still feeling the deceptive calm of Sleep linger, trying to take him back, Death at her side. His own hands clutched at Recover as he mumbled scrambled prayers through wet coughs, red on sunshine yellow, grass green as the mage cried, patted his back and didn’t care, didn’t care, warm and real and honest.

I don’t want to sleep anymore, he thought he said. I don’t want to sleep alone, he might have murmured. He couldn’t tell, because Lugh didn’t reply, shoulders shaking as he helped Chad back to unsteady feet- He would have to retreat, if the way he nearly slipped in his own blood and his shaking hands were any indication. But he was awake, he was alive.

But he knew that Sleep would keep waiting, waiting until she brought him back once and for all.

 

 

                      _And sometimes, he is so, so tired._


End file.
